Number Twenty Eight ©

Sa watched the buildings pass by.

He saw in his leather seat, his chin resting on his palms, looking out the window of the train. The hills rolled past. The roads went away.

A woman sitting behind Sa kept kicking his seat to the rhythm of the bass in some song in her head. Sa didn't mind.

After a while it was quite meditative. He started to wonder what she looked like. He actually wasn't sure it was a woman, he just made the arbitrary assumption that it was. Possibly, it could be a man. Sa wanted to believe it was an intelligent, beautiful, articulate, very musically inclined woman. He didn't mind if they would only be friends, he was just happy to benefit from her giving him a tune to snooze too.

Sa woke up after falling asleep to the melody she created. It could be her own original creation, as well. Sa just assumed it was the recreation of an already existing beat.

As he awoke, her feet were still pounding percussions into his back. It wasn't loud, it was just light enough for him to feel but no one else to hear.

She might not have even noticed what she was doing. Maybe it just came from her unconscious, it may have been a habit for her to unconsciously tab her feet to exceptional rhythms.

Sa wondered if she travelled alot, if she took this same train every time. He wondered who she was sitting with, if anyone. He wondered what her childhood was like and what made her happy.

Maybe she was wondering who was sitting in front of her. Maybe she wanted to just kick a hole in his seat and have him turn around and peek through it.

He wondered where this train was going and where she was going afterwards. He didn't remember what he had gotten on her for, anymore. It wasn't a problem though. Sa wasn't obligated to be somewhere else. He could be anywhere doing anything in the world and be just fine.

In his mind, Sa began putting sounds to her kicks. Sometimes a cymbal, sometimes a horn, sometimes a snare drum, sometimes a funky guitar chord. His eyes closed themseles and Sa just listened to the music. He wanted more of this band. Maybe they would perform somewhere close by. Maybe he could get them to play for free.

Soon, his questions receded and only a small sliver of awareness was there to experience the melody. There was no other awareness. Just a minuscule slice witnessing this two-footed band orchestrate a hypnotic chant of percussion. It grew louder and more ambient.

Sa's eyes opened, as they always must, after several hours. The music was no longer, Sa hadn't even noticed. His eyes were staring straight ahead into the seat ahead. The person sitting next to him had been replaced. Replaced with another person, pretty much indistinguishable from the rest of the local population. They wore tall hats, very earthy colors, thick, heavy jackets- which appeared waterproof. A few of them had glasses, some carried brown cases, very full of traveling belongings.

Few people on the train lived on it. Sa could have been wrong with that assumption, but it seemed logical. They would have to pay for a ticket every stop. Maybe if passengers gave them money, maybe if they would perform and entertain them. Who knows, Sa just knew that everybody on the train looked similar.

He realized that she would probably look like one of them, too. He wanted to picture her differently but it was too good to be true, He thought that everybody probably kicked on the seat in front of them. She was probably not even a she. A man could have been making all those taps against his seat.

He tried to think of something else. His window was really, really clean. As if nobody had ever smudged it, or it was cleaned very frequently. Somebody had to do it, he figured. "What a job" he thought, "Scrubbing windows. Just so that vagabonds like me can see clearly".

He noticed that in the gap between his seat and the window was a space which revealed a very feminine silhouette facial reflection off the adjacent window. "Perhaps she was a she!" Sa was extraordinarily excited with this possibility.

"Her legs must be sore" He thought.

It was a refreshing turn of events.

His attentions returned to the tall man beside him. The man was very remarkably boring. His ere open, his mouth closed, very coarse heavy wrinkles with dry skin. He was clearly awake, but he never spoke or looked in Sa's direction, even to see out of the window. They could have doing off of a cliff or off the track and he would have had no way of being forewarned. Sa always checked out the window to be sure there was rails beneath them. He also liked to watch everything pass them by, and to watch the sky very hesitantly change. Sometimes the clouds transform into new forms. Morphing from one shape to another. With very elaborate pictures, one animal changing can affect the entire picture profoundly. Sa liked those pictures the most. Sometimes it was like watching a movie. Sa didn't have to do a thing but look and everything around him was alive and changing and fascinating.

For hours in a train, Sa wouldn't be bored. He wasn't even alone either. He could speak to anyone and they would reply. If he didn't, they weren't going to disturb him. Everyone left one another alone, mostly. This was the case in many of the places Sa visited.

Once in a while, the being swould be very eccentric. Sa wouldn't stay long in those places because he couldn't relax. Always they kept him at his sharpest with witty questions and compelling, suggestive gestures.

Something happened and Sa was filled with an overwhelming warm smile. He felt everything was in progress. Still incompletelStill perfecting. There was so much waiting for him. Still so much to enjoy. So much to relate to and to be blissful with. So much to be there for. So much that will happen of its own. All in due time. This overwhelming smile just held him warmly. And Sa gave it.